The Great Rescue
by Yukirei
Summary: They were facing an imminent and great danger. Will the lemon and the lime succeed in saving their nakama? [Straw Hats centric]
1. Usopp always knew he had insane mates

**The Great Rescue  
**_By Yukirei (a.k.a. Cosmiko Ling)_

**Pairing: **None. Though Zoro x Sanji was requested, I think...? Sure, you can think it that way if you want to... but I rather not see any pairing, and after you've seen the fic, I'm sure you'll see what I mean :P  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own One Piece or any of its characters. One Piece belongs to Oda Eiichiro-sensei. This is a non-profit fanfiction written by a fan, for the enjoyment of other fans.  
**Summary:** They were facing an imminent and great danger. Will the lemon and the lime succeed in saving their nakama?  
**Author's Notes: **Written for Shiy who gave the following keywords: dungeon, dragon, drain, lemon, lime  
If you find this fic weird, blame Shiy. (What else was I supposed to do with keywords like these! TT)_

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The lights went out and they were once more enveloped in darkness.

The lime grunted as he felt something push against him.

The lemon nudged the sleeping form beside him.

"Oi, bastard. Get out of my way."

Zoro didn't move an inch.

"Didn't you hear what that old hag said?"

"What?" Zoro asked without thinking, his voice thick with sleep.

"Wake up, shitty moron," Sanji said urgently. "She said that she was going to feed Nami-san to the dragon tonight."

"What?" Zoro, half-awake now, asked incredulously.

"I have to save Nami-san! Sweet Nami-san, she was meant to be had as she is, not go through the anguishing torture of the dragon's flame," Sanji said passionately.

Zoro was awake now. "The old hag said that?" Nami was his friend too. And while he didn't share the same foolish sweeping emotions as the idiot beside him, he wasn't one to abandon his nakama.

"Yes. I have to save her." Sanji was determined.

"Where is she?" Zoro hissed.

"Down in the dark dungeons." Not that their surroundings weren't dark as it was, but the dungeons were dark too. Thus, the lemon's description couldn't be called a lie.

Zoro started moving without further words.

Sanji pushed hurriedly by him.

"W-wait! If you guys jump from here, it's practically suicide!" A trembling voice sounded from somewhere in the shadows.

Both fruits came to a halt - right at the edge.

Before them lay a narrow, sinister-looking abyss, the bottom beyond sight.

"You heard what the old hag said, Usopp," Sanji said, that dangerous, determined calm in his tone.

A small, round object rolled out of the shadows. "Yes, but..."

"We won't die." Zoro cut in, and then rolled ahead over the edge, throwing caution to the wind. One could almost hear his maniacal grin in his voice.

Usopp was speechless.

"You don't have to join us," Sanji said, before rolling forward. Unlike _certain_ other nakama, Sanji was relatively sensible and wasn't normally one who undertook reckless or idiotic actions as these; but when it involved matters like the fairer fruits, it could become an entirely different tale (i.e. he often ended up doing the most foolish things).

The pea stared silently after his citrus nakama.

They landed on the cool floor of the dungeons at the bottom after several rebounds on the vertical walls of the cliff, and lay there heaving. The lime, being more thick-skinned, seemed to have evaded serious damage. A big bruise, however, was visible on the lemon's side.

"Oi, idiot lemon, you alright?" The lime muttered under his breath as they rested side by side, staring at the gentle slope ahead and the white bars that loomed beyond, visible in the darkness only due to the contrast in colours.

"Yea," the lemon muttered as he rolled past the lime without a glance at him.

Zoro didn't question further. They were both well aware that neither would have admitted weakness to the other.

Zoro reached Sanji's side in front of the white cage just in time to hear him swearing.

"Sanji-kun?"

The lime was apparently not the only one who had heard the lemon's curses.

Among the dark forms that could barely be made out in the shadows behind the bars, Zoro saw a circular shape that was likely Nami (also judging from the direction of the voice).

"Don't worry, Nami-san. I'll get you out of there," Sanji said reassuringly, the anxiety that had been in his curses now concealed.

There was a short silence.

Then, Nami spoke again.

"That probably isn't possible, but it's alright." It was the collected tone of one who had accepted the inevitable fate that lay awaiting ahead. "Thank you for the thought, Sanji-kun." The last sentence was not said in the usual syrupy voice Nami used to ask Sanji for favours or thank him for special treatment; rather, it was said with an unusual sincerity. Kinda scary, if one stopped to think about it. Not that any of them did at that point.

"Nami-san..." Sanji paused for a moment before continuing. "We've gone through greater dangers than this to escape being processed. We won't let you go through the dragon's flames now," Sanji said fiercely. "We'll all be eaten fresh as we were meant to be eaten. If the cage is opened before the old hag returns, and if we can get behind these bars before that, we can push you over the top and you can roll away through the backdoor into the garden where the birds will find you and eat you."

"..." Nami stared incredulously at the direction of the lemon's voice. Sanji's "plan" sounded crazy.

"Well," she began. "For starters, neither of you are small enough to get through the bars."

"I'll go through," Zoro volunteered.

Nami felt like rolling her eyes as she pointed out matter-of-factly, "You're too big."

"Doesn't matter," Zoro said as he evaluated the space between the bars. It was true that it was too small for him, but if he squeezed a little, it ought to be possible. And the resulting bruise he would get might even be bigger than the lemon's. Zoro smirked to himself in the darkness.

"One of the kids usually opens the castle door for a snack before the old hag starts to prepare dinner. If he opens the dungeons too--"

"He wouldn't. The other occupants of the dungeons are also fruits and vegetables, and the kids usually open the castle door in search of foods like Luffy."

Silence followed the cold truth presented by Nami's sensible words.

"I've an idea." A fourth voice spoke, breaking the silence.

"!! Usopp!?" Nami was used to Zoro, and ocassionally, Sanji doing insane things. (After all, they _were_ practically monsters.) But not Usopp as well.

"I'm also part of the team. I should help too."

Trembles could still be detected in the pea's voice, and though it was too dark to tell, he was probably shivering as well; but he was down there in the dungeons, and that fact stood out far more than his trembles.

"Spit it out, your idea."

"We can get Luffy to hold on to the castle door and the dungeon bars so that when the kid opens the castle door, the dungeon will be opened even without the kid touching it."

A second of silence followed. Then--

"Damn, that's brilliant!" Sanji said.

"You think so?" Usopp asked, blinking in surprise. Then, he quickly corrected himself, "Of course. After all, it was thought up by Captain Usopp!"

"That... may just work," Nami said slowly. She found a widening smile on her surface at the sudden glimmer of hope.

"What will work?" Luffy's voice sounded right beside Zoro, Sanji and Usopp.

The three gave a start, then grinned at the familiar voice.

"The plan to save Nami," Usopp replied, quickly repeating his plan.

"Of course it'll work!" Luffy said, nodding convictedly (even if one couldn't be certain that he fully understood the plan). Once Luffy's mind was set upon something, the word "failure" did not exist in his dictionary.

Luffy's confidence was contagious.

"Yea! What could go wrong?" Usopp laughed.

"Nami-san, do you know how to get to the backdoor from here?" Sanji asked, speaking past the bars of the dungeon cage. Beside him, Usopp was directing Luffy on where to attach himself and Zoro was making his attempt of getting through the bars - going back as far as he could, then rolling forward at his fastest speed, planning on letting the force push him through.

"Yes, the backdoor is just east of the castle," Nami responded, feeling the thrills of excitement now that the plan actually seemed workable.

"Great! So now, all we have to do is to--"

Without forewarning, the castle door suddenly opened.

Light flooded into the darkness.

A second after - the momentary pause only due to Luffy's stretching - the dungeon door opened together with the retreating castle door.

Usopp hastily ducked into the narrow space under the dungeons as it loftily rolled past overhead.

Zoro remained stuck halfway between the bars.

Sanji bounced off the narrow ledge between the dungeon cage and the castle door, falling to the cold smooth surface directly below.

"What?" The oversized kid standing in front of the refridgerator uttered as he stared in astonishment at the chewing gum stretched across the open refridgerator.

"Are you in the kitchen again, Wapol? I thought I said no snacking before dinner!"

"I'm.. just thinking of making some orange juice, Mum."

"Don't touch the tangerine, I'm using it for tonight's dinner."

Footsteps grew louder.

"Alright, Mum."

The kid hastily grabbed a bar of chocolate and closed the refridgerator door.

The footsteps came to a stop.

The kid spun around, hands that clutched chocolate treasure held firmly behind his back, which was pressed against the refridgerator.

"Wapol."

"Yes, Mum."

"_Wapol._" The voice took on a dangerous tone.

"But I'm hungry, Mum! I want to eat! I'm going to eat!" The kid suddenly freed his hands from behind his back, tugged at the wrapper of the chocolate bar, and upon failing to rip it off with his fingers, pushed the bar, wrapper and all, into his mouth.

"I said no snacking before dinner!" The woman delivered a loud blow to the kid's head, causing a hill to rise on the top of which and the unfortunate, now-deformed chocolate bar to be spat out onto the tiled kitchen floor.

The kid threw a tantrum, stomping his feet noisily.

The woman glared at the kid, then suddenly noticed an out-of-place yellow on the floor. A briefest raising of an eyebrow the only sign of it being an unexpected occurrence, the woman bent over to pick up the forlorn fruit.

"Shut up," the woman spoke harshly to the kid. "I'll make you some lemonade before starting dinner."

END?

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Date started: 13 December 2005  
Last edited: 3 November 2006 


	2. NGs before settling on the fridge idea

**The Great Rescue: **the N.G.s before the refridgerator idea was settled on

1.  
After a brief and hasty discussion, it was decided. Robin, Chopper and Usopp would remain on the ship to guard against likely attacks from the villain Yandef's henchmen, while Luffy, Zoro and Sanji would enter the castle to rescue Nami.

Luffy wouldn't stay for a task involving waiting. Zoro was partly seeking the powerful challenge he heard awaited as Yandef's secret final weapon. Sanji wasn't not going because it involved Nami. Besides, he was the only one out of the three who could find the way around using the map that Robin found.

WTH YANDEF? ...N.G.

2.  
"Intriguing."

Sanji's ears caught the murmur. He halted, looking back at Robin.

The dark-haired lady had stopped a few tens of metres back and was absorbed in studying the cold stone walls of the dungeon that they were walking through.

"Does it mean something, Robin-chan?" Sanji asked, quietly so as not to disturb her, as he walked back to stand beside Robin, staring at the roughly-crafted, ancient designs in the stone that her fingers lightly brushed.

"Dragons" was Robin's single-word response.

...Um. N.G.

3.  
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Thud. Thud. Splash. Thud.

The drops of water fell in time with their footsteps.

Rainwater was making its way past some crack in the ground into the passageway through which they were walking.

The dampness together with the cold, and well, having to work together with that dumb marimo, none of those were doing anything to improve Sanji's stinking mood.

T.T N.G.


End file.
